The gear thread for people with no gear.

[shoehorn]

Great thread- I also feel that you got to do the best with what you got. I got:

Mackie board (borrowed)
One ADAT (borrowed)
Tascam 4track
POD 2.0
Casio keyboard- cheapest one they make (used also as my drum machine)
ART MP 1
Alesis Nano-verb
A few cheap but usable Mics (ADK, Benson, Sony, CAD)
All going through a goodwill/garage sale stereo with Sears Speakers
Mac running Pro Tools (free version)
Various instruments that make the sounds...

Never been happier.

[CabreeToe]

Oh what the fuck, I'll play.. BTW bobbydj, I was surprised to see in that pic how tidy yer setup is!

Recorders:
Tascam 48 8 trk 1/2" - Rollin' w/th' half-inch,yo.
Otari 5050 BII 2 trk 1/4"
Ampex atr-700 2 trk 1/4"
Akai 2 trk r-t-r don't know model #
tascam 414 4 trk cassette

Mixer:
Soundcraft delta 200 16X4X2

Mics:
shure 57 dynamic (3)
shure 58 dynamic (2)
shure bg4.1 sm.dia condenser (2)
sennheiser 421 dynamic (2)
ev 442b omni (2)
ev 665 dynamic (1)
oktava 319 lg.dia condenser (1)
marshall v67 lg.dia condenser (1)
marshall v57 lg.dia condenser (2)
marshall v77 tube (1)
beyer m260.80 (1)

Outboard, etc. :
Sytek 4 channel pre, BB chans 3 and 4
Rolls rp220 2 chan tube pre
Ampex 601 tube pre/ phantom power (thanks Kerry!)
Altec 1606 4 chan pre w/insert and direct out
Symetrix 150cl comp (2) - only one works Grr...
RNC comp
DBX 163 comp (2)
Furman rv-1 spring reverb
Akg bx-10 spring reverb
Ensoniq dsp-4 effects

Finally, in the "Mid-fi ROCK Room, Studio B, Triple Platinum Sound Centre" (i.e., 12X15X8 living room, hardwood floors, windows boarded / fiberglass insulated):
Drums (dunno brand)
Couple of cheap basses
Fender Lead III, double humbucker les paul style circa '81
Some cheap garage sale thingy ($35) electric
Harmony electric 60's (fer $60)
Fender Hartfield electric
Takamine acoustic
Hohner jumbo acoustic
harmony acoustic ($15)
Peavey tko bass/keys amp
MusicMan hd 210
Powered pa speaker (dunno brand)
Other tube guitar amp (dunno brand)
Squire 15 practice amp
Fender Bullet practice amp
Korg synth (dunno name)
Roland electric piano (horrible)
Couple of casios
Ensoniq Mirage
Air organ
Couple pairs maracas
CB-700 perc. xylophone student model thingy
3 tambourines
1 homemade gobo (4 x 6)

plus whatever I forgot..


Tom

Man what a fuckin bare bones set-up. How the hell do you get anything done?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

my pile of junk....i only listed all of it because
1. i wanted to see if i could remember it all whilst sitting at the day job
2. most of it is cheap and/or falling apart
3. it looks like a bunch typed out, but feels like nothing when i'm working. partly because i've had most of it for awhile and i take it for granted...

otari mx5050 7 track. track one is on vacation
mackie 24x8. barely passes signal at the moment
tascam dap1 portable dat. doesn't run on batteries, thus limiting its portability considerably.
event 2020s
alesis ra100
P3 PC win98. getting awfully long in the tooth, but still runs just fine.
delta 1010
benchmark dac1. all the people you hear raving about this thing are telling the truth. it makes a big difference
wavelab/cubase/reason
waves plug ins
digital fishphones and mda plugs. all very cool

2 57s
58
at4050
4040
3060
2 KSM 141s

2 bellari pres
2 art pres
focusrite isa428

rnc
mxr limiter
behringer autocom? something. i never use it.

alesis midiverb 2. it's all about preset 49
boss se50
ensoniq dp2. sound goes in but doesn't come out

ibanez tube screamer
custom fuzz/ring mod made by greg moss
boss dd5
line 6 delay mod
vox wah
morley wah
dod gonkulator
mxr bass di

my beloved space echo

4 snares
2 kicks
a bunch of toms and cymbals in various sizes and states of disrepair

fender strat
fender j bass
danelectro cheapo bass

fender deluxe reverb. a veteran of many, many shows
gibson something or other. it's old and rusty and terribly bright
some really old and little danelectro amp. it's about 10 watts, has like a 5 inch speaker and a nasty ground hum, but it sounds SO GOOD.
marshall mini amp. a good little weapon to have.
mesa studio 22. sounds amazing when it feels like working.

big rooms with high ceilings.

[gyrofrog.com]

3. it looks like a bunch typed out, but feels like nothing when i'm working. partly because i've had most of it for awhile and i take it for granted...

Which brings me to Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room," which I brought up in a different thread.

Presumably, all he used on this recording was a microphone, a tape machine, and a speaker (and his voice).

And here I gripe about not having enough equipment... What I really need are IDEAS.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

What I really need are IDEAS.

true true. and the discipline to work through them...

[ottokbre]

I'm working with a lot less right now. Not that I ever had anything great before.

iBook 900 w/ iMic (16bit baby!) and Bias Deck (so I can mix in 5.1 which we all know is important)
Tascam Porta 02
Beringher Mini Mixer (2 Pres)
Sansamp GT2

Oktava 219
Audix OM3xb
SM57
the Egg mic
Binuaral clip-on Omnis (works great straight into the iMic)

Customized Mexi Tele
Vox Valvetronix 60
Fender Maple Cutaway Acoustic w/ Fishman Pickup and cool stencil art

'69 Fender Rhodes MKI (puke green student version)
Korg MS2000

also use Ableton Live 2 and Reason 2

[andrew embassy]

my setup is so low end... i can't actually record anything. i just tell people what is sounded like. "and then this part comes up that's like DA DA DA DA and then it goes NEEEEEEEEEoooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhooooooooossshhhhh!"

haha, that's an analog delay pedal!

[awolski]

Floss Coyote Domestic Transduction Labs:

Recorders:
-Tascam 788 8-track Digital Portastudio (it actually sounds really nice, at least to me)
-Tascam 414 Mk1 4-track Cassette (because the digital 'porta can't do backwards stuff)

Pres:
-ART Tube MP (w/VU meter!) - I replaced the stock tube w/an Electro Harmonix 12AX7eh because someone on a message board told me to - it was an improvement
-Studio Projects VTB1

Compressor:
-RNC

Outboard EQ:
-Yamaha NE-1 ($20. It's only really useful if you want a massive inverted bell curve with a side order of hiss)

Monitors, etc.:
-pair of Event PS-8 (OK, this doesn't really count as "cheap")
-Scott home amp (wife's) with Sanyo speakers (from grade school graduation), KEF speakers (a friend's), a pair of boombox speakers from a dumpster (these are my version of Auratones)
-15-year-old Sony MDR-V6 cans

Secret weapon:
-Radio Shack DJ mixer. This has served in various capacities as headphone amp, mixing board, and secret weapon feedback machine (when paired with cheap tape deck [free], Kenwood Graphic EQ [traded for something else], and some RCA cords - hey it's a "modular analog synth"!)

Homemade percussion:
-a bathtub faucet (clearer, louder and sweeter sounding than any cowbell)
-a cookie tin filled with bottle caps (poor man's tambourine)

The keyboard army:
-Casio SK1 (from garage sale - trashy "sampler" included!), Yamaha toy synth (from neighbor growing up - they lost my Atari cartridges and I kept this keyboard), air organ (thrift store), some full-size toy Casio keyboard from the 80s where every patch has heavy gated reverb and/or delay permanently built in (dude left it in the trash behind my house - sweet!), another little toy Yamaha.

Oh, and some actually nice guitar stuff which doesn't fit this thread.

Looks like a lot with all my BSing.

[ottokbre]

The keyboard army:
-Casio SK1 (from garage sale - trashy "sampler" included!), Yamaha toy synth (from neighbor growing up - they lost my Atari cartridges and I kept this keyboard), air organ (thrift store), some full-size toy Casio keyboard from the 80s where every patch has heavy gated reverb and/or delay permanently built in (dude left it in the trash behind my house - sweet!), another little toy Yamaha.

this exact keyboard is all over the first Sigur Ros album. the lead singer swears by it.

[joeysimms]

Oh what the fuck, I'll play.. BTW bobbydj, I was surprised to see in that pic how tidy yer setup is!

Recorders:
Tascam 48 8 trk 1/2" - Rollin' w/th' half-inch,yo.
Otari 5050 BII 2 trk 1/4"
Ampex atr-700 2 trk 1/4"
Akai 2 trk r-t-r don't know model #
tascam 414 4 trk cassette

Mixer:
Soundcraft delta 200 16X4X2

Mics:
shure 57 dynamic (3)
shure 58 dynamic (2)
shure bg4.1 sm.dia condenser (2)
sennheiser 421 dynamic (2)
ev 442b omni (2)
ev 665 dynamic (1)
oktava 319 lg.dia condenser (1)
marshall v67 lg.dia condenser (1)
marshall v57 lg.dia condenser (2)
marshall v77 tube (1)
beyer m260.80 (1)

Outboard, etc. :
Sytek 4 channel pre, BB chans 3 and 4
Rolls rp220 2 chan tube pre
Ampex 601 tube pre/ phantom power (thanks Kerry!)
Altec 1606 4 chan pre w/insert and direct out
Symetrix 150cl comp (2) - only one works Grr...
RNC comp
DBX 163 comp (2)
Furman rv-1 spring reverb
Akg bx-10 spring reverb
Ensoniq dsp-4 effects

Finally, in the "Mid-fi ROCK Room, Studio B, Triple Platinum Sound Centre" (i.e., 12X15X8 living room, hardwood floors, windows boarded / fiberglass insulated):
Drums (dunno brand)
Couple of cheap basses
Fender Lead III, double humbucker les paul style circa '81
Some cheap garage sale thingy ($35) electric
Harmony electric 60's (fer $60)
Fender Hartfield electric
Takamine acoustic
Hohner jumbo acoustic
harmony acoustic ($15)
Peavey tko bass/keys amp
MusicMan hd 210
Powered pa speaker (dunno brand)
Other tube guitar amp (dunno brand)
Squire 15 practice amp
Fender Bullet practice amp
Korg synth (dunno name)
Roland electric piano (horrible)
Couple of casios
Ensoniq Mirage
Air organ
Couple pairs maracas
CB-700 perc. xylophone student model thingy
3 tambourines
1 homemade gobo (4 x 6)

plus whatever I forgot..


Tom

Man what a fuckin bare bones set-up. How the hell do you get anything done?

LOL! Funny thing is when I only had the four track and a 58, and wasn't busy trying to learn to use the rest of this crap, I got a lot more done.. I'm still waiting for the learning curve to level off again!

[thenumber]

Multitrack:
AlthonXP 2ghz, 512mb 400mhz, 100gighd 8mb cache, 52x burner
Delta 1010lt, running @ 24bit 96khz

dual monitor setup (found on in the trash - other was given to me for free)

the computer is important, i took the time and spent the money to make it the best pc audio machine i could, to counteract the item which comes next on the list...

Console:
Behringer UB1622

yep. hahahha. though i did this cool thing where the insert sends are split between the multitrack inputs and the insert returns, so the multitrack sees a signal unmolested by ULTRA FUCKING SHITTY behringer circuitry, and the rest of the board is only used for headphone mixes. sounds good

Mics:
SM58
Audix D-6
Oktava ML52
Oktava MK052 (pair)

TapeOp Omnis - Built onto a headset for mobile stereo
Home made contact mics
This fucked up mic my mom gave me when i was a kid that she used to record notes with in college. everything sounds like its being run through a broken fuzz pedal

Monitoring:
Amp: Mobile 8 ... 1970's 8 track player
Speakers: The no-name ones that CAME with the 8 track player
Sony MDR-7505 headphones
2 jenson headphones that kinda suck which i use for tracking

Misc:
RNC

Instrument Stuff:

Fender Toronado
Gibson SG Special, JB in the bridge, and one of those Smokey Amps mounted in the neck cavity, with volume and tone control - for max feedback manipulation
Squir Strat - Fretless, weird electronics
a couple other shit guitars i keep for sentimental reasons

A shit classical acoustic that smells like mildew that i found in the trash

Peavey T-40 bass
almost-finished home made bass - 5 string fretless w/ sustainer pickup

Fender Hot Rod Deville 2x12
Road Bass 440 head + home made cab 2x10+1x15

Casio VZ-1 - my main synth, badass fm-style thing that sounds great
lots of circuit bent keyboards and drum machines

USA Big Muff
Arion Analog Delay - 20$ brand new!! Sounds COOL
Ibanez PM7 phase modulator
a ton of home made pedals - delays, vibes, distortion, whacky oscillator things

This 1950's 1/2" reel-to-reel, apparently some consumer kids toy thing. came with a tape of a french girl singing and her dad yelling I AM A CRAZY PROFESSOR. im not shitting you. i cant find any new tape that fits on it, so its kinda useless

a bunch of tape loops i built into standard cassette tapes

NANOLOOP. amazing sequencer/synth/noisemaker cart for the GAMEBOY. crazy nintendo music!

Midiman 2x2 midi interface
Evolution 16 knob midi controller
generic 4 octave midi keyboard

on my own, i make weird electronic music using samples i record on my own (teeth plucking fan cage, breaking stuff, etc) with live guitar manipulation. I use Renoise and PureData.

For recording bands (my own, and others), my partners bring over their mics (MXL Large/Small Condencer, Oktava mk012, sm57, audix tom mic pack), their other computer w/ delta 1010lt, and a 2nd behringer 1622.

in the end, the final products actually sound like a record. amazing, huh?

[awolski]

this exact keyboard is all over the first Sigur Ros album. the lead singer swears by it.

That's cool. I didn't know that. I've been playing with that piece of junk for years now, so maybe I'm "ahead of my time"!

I love cheesy toy keyboards. Each one has like 1 thing it does well, but that 1 thing is really cool and unique. It can be a challenge getting a usable signal without tons of hiss and buzz, but that's part of the fun.

I forgot mikes!
-Shure SM57 x 2
-Shure SM58
-Shure Beta 52
-Octava MK219
-Octava MC012 w/3 capsules
-Radio Shack/Realistic Omni (the darkest omni mic I have ever heard)

Nothing with much "trash cache", except maybe the R.S., but whatever.

[ottokbre]

this exact keyboard is all over the first Sigur Ros album. the lead singer swears by it.

That's cool. I didn't know that. I've been playing with that piece of junk for years now, so maybe I'm "ahead of my time"!

I had one too, when I was about 11. So of 'course the only thing I ever did with it was sample fart and burp sounds and re-pitch it. No one thought it was funny after the first time I did it, but that didnt stop my shallow juvie mind from doing it time and time again.

My last girl freind had this kick ass little Radioshack keyboard that I borrowed.....unfortunatly, when we broke up, she remembered that I still had it and reclaimed it.

[JES]

I'm somewhere inbetween. I actually feel like I have a lot for an amateur, though compared to any pro I have jack:

Dual gig Mac with Digital Performer and Waves (all on OS9 for now) as the main thing. 19" CRT monitor
Motu 2408 (yes, the original one!)
Mackie 1402VLZ for monitoring and occasional preamping duty (though I have used it for lots of recordings with no complaints)
Mackie HR-824s
FMR RNP and RNP
Peavey VMP-II
Art Levelar
dbx 119
Shure KSM-32, 57 and 58
Crown CM-700 (x2)
BBE Sonic maximizer (haven't used it for 5 years, but feel funny selling it)
Digitech DSP-128 unit for fucked up reverbs, usually just to make singer comfortable while tracking
Patch bay
Ibanez AD-202 for analog delay
Pod 2.0 (I can feel the sneers)
Tech 21 Bass DI driver
Roland TR-505 in need of repair
Sony 7506n headphones and Direct Sound EXtreme Isolation phones
Drumkey (really useful to have on hand!)
old sony 2-track reel to reel. Looks like a consumer deck from the 70s. Real dirty sounding. Might be good for something. Nice knobs. Looks cool.

Lots of cables, micstands, etc.

Now, the bass rig is more serious:

Modulus Bassstar
1980 Fender Precision fretless (maple neck!)
1984 Ibanez Roadstar II, restrung as piccolo bass
Eden WT-400
Flite 2x10 and 1x15 cabs
Rocktron Replifex
Four Designs Rackmount and Bass Rockman permanently set to overdrive + footpedal for bypass
Fulltone Bassdrive (this+bassstar+my fingers="my sound")
Big Muff (Russian)
Dod FX-25b
Boss Tu-2 (a tuner pedal -- how USEFUL!)
Boss Octaver
Tech 21 MIDI Mouse (to control Replifex)

Capo, slides, lots of other little accessories.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but that's the basics.

Works for me, though like all the other suckers, I'm always eyeing more (mmmm, 1176!).

Best,
--JES

[epic problem]

my first foray into posting on tapeop after weeks of lurking and reading is this one.
for starters, i actually recorded an entire album of relatively mid-fi songs with an akg dynamic mic through a behringer 4 track eurorack mixer, into my garbage SBlive soundcard, using cool edit pro to track everything and mix. i can hear the cringes now, but you'd all be surprised at how decent it sounded. actually, it gathered comparisons to early sebadoh and microphones/mt eerie stuff.
ANYWAY, my recent setup is still pretty bare bones (still virtually no outboard gear) - almost more than any others i've seen on here

PC blah blah SBlive card
Adobe Audition + ozone plugins
Reason 2.5 for sampled drums and silly sounds
Yamaha MG 12/4 mixer
AKG 3700 (?) dynamic
MXL v67 condensor
Samick acoustic owned since grade school
2000 Fender Telecaster
1972 Les Paul Custom
Fender Squire bass (periodically borrowed)
Fender 'The Twin' redknob 2x12
Boss DD-5 delay, DS-1 distortion, TU-2 tuner
Casio keyboard, Orcana wind organ
Fun Box: maracas, tamborine, kazoo, two harmonicas, egg shaker

and i end up with something along these lines:
a not quite up to date mix of a fairly up to date song (please note: i had nothing to do with the design of the website that song is hosted on. TERRIBLE.)